Slow Page Loads

I am aware that this blog is loading particularly slowly lately. If you want a fast load, go to FastAVC.

I've installed a firefox plugin (thank Joshua) that will help me figure out the culprit and fix it.

Sorry about the delays you are experiencing.

Comments

[Fred]

Hey fred,

The thing causing the slow page load is the amount of widgets running on both sides of your page (particularly on the left). The way things are coded in this blog layout, content is read (by the browser) first down, then to the right. This means, the browser needs to load all the widgets on the left, then your content, then the widgets on the right.

A bit technical, now: the fact is, the whole page load is around 144 requests (and way over 1.5mb) on a VC. If you look at the difference, our blog (at http://blog.webreakstuff.com) is around 14 requests and not over 120kb, meaning it loads in less than 1 second. There are other reasons, but to put it simple: you have megs and megs of stuff on both sides of the page that nobody really looks at, while the content is given no real impact.

Hope that helped!

[Mathew Ingram]

That's funny. I saw the headline of your post in my feedreader, and the first thing I thought of was the post I just read from We Break Stuff about an overdose of widgets (http://blog.webreakstuff.com/2006/10/blog-widgets-as-christmas-tree/). Coincidence? I think not. It's the battle of the Freds!

[Rick]

Now I'm gettin' errors on the FastAVC domain!

[jackson]

Fred is just ahead of the curve - always has been.

[Ric]

Fred (Wilson) - you could test Fred's comment by moving some of the content-heavy widgets to the right side of the page. According to webreakstuff, this should make the left side plus the content load faster.